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This is a subject that is becoming discussed more and more. This thread should serve as our developmental initiative to form a request letter so that we may "blanket" our local school administrations with formal requests. If carrying within a school zone these letters will provide us a legal exemption from 626.9/626.95 on a district-by-district basis. It may be troublesome to carry these letters with you, but should an unlawful detainment occur, they will only work in your defense.

Let's recall the law, first, so that we may properly address it:

Code:

(b) Any person who possesses a firearm in a place that the person knows, or reasonably should know, is a school zone, as defined in paragraph (1) of subdivision (e), unless it is with the written permission of the school district superintendent, his or her designee, or equivalent school authority, shall be punished as specified in subdivision (f).

This "permission" is the basis of which we will be requesting. A refusal or acceptance letter in the future may help with the overturning of 626.9/626.95. Until that day, we may be able to get our local district superintendents to grant us permission to UOC within these magical 1000ft victim disarmament zones.

I am writing to you today as Superintendent/Administrator for [DISTRICT] to provide a resolution to an issue at hand. In our great state of California, the legislature has dictated that it is unlawful for a person to possess a concealable firearm within 1000 feet of a K-12 school unless certain conditions are met. One such condition is the possession is permitted by the superintendent or equivalent authority. Since it is nearly impossible to acquire a concealed carry weapons permit in our state, we do not have many options of possession for our personal protection.

The permission I ask is to be able to lawfully possess my firearm(s) within the 1000ft area of the K-12 schools in your district, [DISTRICT]. I am an average, law abiding citizen and do not have any intent to do anything illegal in any of your district's school zones, nor do I have any intent to carry onto any school properties, which is only allowed by a concealed carry weapons permit. Due to the sporadic saturation of schools throughout the state of California, it is incredibly difficult to go about my business while lawfully in possession of a firearm for my personal protection without your written permission.

Sadly, our cities and states are rife with criminal activity. Many of our streets are full of active gang members and career criminals. These groups and individuals have no respect for the law, and in doing so arm themselves illegally. Again, I only ask for your permission to have the means available to protect myself from those of criminal intent who wish to deprive me of my life or property for those brief moments I may be within 1000ft of a school in your district.

Thank you, and I look forward to your positive response soon.

Sincerely,
-Signed

[line]
Now begins the communal development phase. Please, quote and/or post revisions to areas you think may need changes, factual and positive information that can be added, etc. Remember, a denial letter from a superintendent may be useful in the future when 626.9 is challenged. Their denial is the removal of your right(s) without due process of law! If we're able to amass enough denial letters, a class-action suit could be used in the future...

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The only real disagreement I might have with that letter is specifying "concealable" firearms. 626.9 controls all firearms.

I know we have stated it doesn't control long guns, but only if they are "legally transported". Since we have no clarification we may seek to be more general in the request to avoid any situation that may arise from this small but potentially catchy word.

Otherwise I might also mention that IIRC if exempt from 626.9 1000 ft zone, you would be completely exempt even on school grounds. Perhaps I will simply edit mine to include me and grounds of the school my daughter might attend so that I can still carry and drop her off.

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demnogis wrote:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to you today as Superintendent/Administrator for [DISTRICT] to provide a resolution to an issue at hand. In our great state of California, the legislature has dictated that it is unlawful for a person to possess a handgun within 1000 feet of a K-12 school unless certain conditions are met. One such condition is the possession is permitted by the superintendent or equivalent authority. Since it is nearly impossible to acquire a concealed carry weapons permit in our state, I do not have anyoptionto defend myself if attacked within a school zone.

I am asking to be able to lawfully possess my firearm(s) within the 1000ft area of the K-12 schools in your district, [DISTRICT]. I am an upstanding, law-abiding citizen and do not have any intent to do anything illegal in any of your district's school zones, nor do I have any intent to carry onto any school properties, which is only allowed by a concealed carry weapons permit. Due to the sporadic saturation of schools throughout the state of California, it is incredibly difficult to go about my business while lawfully in possession of a firearm for my personal protection without your written permission.

Sadly, our cities and state are rife with criminal activity. Many of our streets are full of active gang members and career criminals. These groups and individuals have no respect for the law, and in doing so arm themselves illegally. Again, I only ask for your permission to have the means available to protect myself from those of criminal intent who wish to deprive me of my life or property for those brief moments I may be within 1000ft of a school in your district.

Thank you, and I look forward to your positive response soon.

Sincerely,
-Signed

I removed parts here and there, I'm not sure how to show removals. I didn't like the term "concealable firearm" because it sounds like it would be carried concealed, which we know if we were allowed to do that then we wouldn't care about the 1000' restriction anyway. I tend to view "concealed" as having a negative connotation and "open" as having a positive one.

I think it's important to focus more on our right being taken away from us and the harm that may come to us as opposed to asking for permission.

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dirtykoala wrote:

looks prety good. we should also start forming a reply to their denial. i dont know if we want to be too agressive, but it should remind them that it is now documented that they denied the right to self preservation, ifyou or a family member areattacked while in a school zone....

I'm not sure if a denial reply is necessary, especially if a line is put in the request to the effect of:

"If this law-abiding citizen is denied, the next communication you can expect to receive will be from my process server, in the form of a lawsuit of X or Y nature."

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Theseus, you are correct in this respect. Until Nordyke is resolved and the 2nd Amendment is again incorporated, we can only request this permission, amass our letters and save them for when a prime legal organization or team of lawyers wish to pursue a class action suit on behalf of all of those denied their right to bear without due process. If we gather these letters now, it saves us all half the work later when the time to overturn 626.9 comes.

Theseus wrote:

As has been pointed out on Calguns however, the schools may be immune to liability. Since the state does not observe the right to bear arms, they are not technically infringing on a right.

If you mail in one such request letter and receive a denial letter, SAVE IT!!! There is the very likely chance that you will need it in the future, should Nordyke come back incorporating the 2nd again.

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I also consider this law a travesty and a land mine for the innocent and law abiding.

However, I want to express a gentle reminder of the obvious: any letter sent to a school superintendent willminimize the possibility of the sender mounting an effective defense to a charge of a violation as to that particular school, basedupon a lack of knowledge of its existence or location.

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Updated the Google document. Here's my current version of the letter. (I may revise it, though I don't intend to use it personally, so maybe not.)

Most of my changes were for grammar, sentence structure, etc. However, I did add some content on top of reformatting. I've also removed some things that I didn't think fit in.

For your perusal:

================================================== ======

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to you today to request your permission to possess firearms within the "Gun Free School Zones" surrounding the campuses within your district.

In our great state of California, the legislature has dictated that it is unlawful for a person to possess a handgun within 1000 feet of a K-12 school unless certain exemptions are met. One such exemption requires that the possession be permitted by the superintendent or equivalent authority. Another common exemption is for the firearm to be in a secure container, which requires handling the firearm in a public forum. As I'm sure you can imagine, a civilian retrieving a firearm from their trunk down the street from one of your schools might cause an alarm in passersby. This could lead to a waste of police resource, and even interruption of the educational process if it leads to a lock down on the campus.

I am an upstanding, law-abiding member of our community and have no intent engaging in any illegal activity while going about my business in these zones. I have no intent to carry onto any school properties. Further, state law requires my firearm(s) to be unloaded in most cases where I would be within one of these zones. Due to the sporadic saturation of schools throughout the state of California, it is incredibly difficult to go about my business while lawfully in possession of a firearm for my personal protection without your written permission.

As you are undoubtedly aware, our cities and state are rife with criminal activity. Many of our streets are full of active gang members and career criminals. These individuals have no respect for the law, and commonly arm themselves illegally within these zones. Your permission would grant me the means to protect my [self/family/children] from these criminal elements for those brief moments [I/we] may be within the "Gun Free School Zones" within your distric.

Since it is nearly impossible to acquire a concealed carry weapons permit in [county], I do not have anyoptionto defend myself if attacked within a school zone. [I suggest omitting this sentence if permits are readily available in your county] For all these reasons, I respectfully request your written permission to lawfully possess/transport my firearm(s) within the 1000ft area of the K-12 schools in your district.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at (xxx)xxx-xxxx.

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I gotta tell you, I think that requesting permission to carry within 1000 feet of a school is a terrible idea. NO school official will EVER grant permission. Most educators are moderately too extremely liberal (usually means anti gun) and they would never accept the liability of allowing someone INWRITING to carry a gun near their campus.

It kinda makes you look like a nut asking for something that will NEVER be allowed. Kinda like walking into your Dr's officeand asking if you can start a campfire in the lobby to keep warm. The response would be "NO, and why would you even ask such a thing?" You would be treated with suspicion every time you came back.

You are just going to come off looking like "one of those gun nut guys" and it will damage whatever strides have been made in making open carry acceptable.

Iknow that there are many extremists on this site that are looking for a fight and would welcome controversy,but I think that most people here are just normal people that want to open carry without being stigmatized or harassed.

Asking to carry a gun near a school is really pushing the edge when we really should be working near the center.

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unobvs wrote:

...However, I want to express a gentle reminder of the obvious: any letter sent to a school superintendent willminimize the possibility of the sender mounting an effective defense to a charge of a violation as to that particular school, basedupon a lack of knowledge of its existence or location.
...

unobvs, we're mailing this to the district superintendent, not the school principals themselves. This way we don't have to worry about knowing where every single public school is within the district.

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Greg36f, your input is noted. However, I think you missed the information above. Right now the 2nd Amendment is not incorporated against our state. When it is, again, these rejection letters will serve as our factual evidence that our right to bear is being infringed upon without due process. Yes, taking down 626.9 is a fight we're all frothing at the mouth for. Blanketing the school districts in CA with this formal request does much of the prep-work for this fight, so that when the time comes we are properly prepared. And your analogy of the Dr's office is way, way off base, though.

Yes, some of us might look like "gun nuts", but believe it or not the schools themselves have no liability whatsoever for anything anyone does, even in their magical 1000ft victim disarmament zones. Whenever there is a shooting, murder or rape within a school zone, is the school held accountable for the criminal's illegal actions? No. It has been established time and time again -- they hold the authority, with no liability.
greg36f wrote:

I gotta tell you, I think that requesting permission to carry within 1000 feet of a school is a terrible idea. NO school official will EVER grant permission. Most educators are moderately too extremely liberal (usually means anti gun) and they would never accept the liability of allowing someone INWRITING to carry a gun near their campus.

It kinda makes you look like a nut asking for something that will NEVER be allowed. Kinda like walking into your Dr's officeand asking if you can start a campfire in the lobby to keep warm. The response would be "NO, and why would you even ask such a thing?" You would be treated with suspicion every time you came back.

You are just going to come off looking like "one of those gun nut guys" and it will damage whatever strides have been made in making open carry acceptable.

Iknow that there are many extremists on this site that are looking for a fight and would welcome controversy,but I think that most people here are just normal people that want to open carry without being stigmatized or harassed.

Asking to carry a gun near a school is really pushing the edge when we really should be working near the center.

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I would suggest not walking your dog armed near a school.........The school thing is a losing battle. You are NEVER going to get permission from a school official. Not gonna happen. You are expending effort on something that is not going to happen when you could be focusing your efforts on something that could be productive like making concealed carry permits more accessible.

I am not saying that open carry is not your right or that you should not do it where it is legal. I am just saying that asking a school official to allow you to carry a gun near his school can come off as sounding a bit crazy and dangerous. I AM NOT SAYING THAT IT IS CRAZY OR DANGEROUS. I am just saying that it could sound that way to someone who either does not respect your rights or does not understand that you are simply a law abiding citizen respectfully asking for something that you really should not have to ask for as an AMERICAN......

Yes, open carry is your right,,,,,,,and if you want to keep it an "edgy" type thing that keeps provoking a negative reaction in many places, then fine,,,thats your right,,,,,but most people want open carry to become as normal as walking down the street with a cell phone attached to your hip. That will be achieved by making open carry people seem as normal and non threatening as possible, respectfully, but firmly exerting the rights that you already have and yes, going to court (both civil and criminally) when needed.

Malcolm X and/or the Black Panthers arestill seenas dangerous extremists in most people’s minds and they did very little top advance rights,Martin Luther King and the NAACP are seen as examples of reason that did advance rights. Both legal and god given rights.

I don't want to be at a city council meeting where some gun ordinance is teetering on the edge of passing and having some school superintendent accompanied by 20 kids get up and waive a bunch of papers stating, "heck no, these guys even want to carry gun right up to the edges of our schools!" They want to shoot our kids from close range rather than 1000 feet away!!!!!!!

Sound crazy,,,,think about why Calif. banned the 50 Cal. Cause terrorists were going to shoot gas storage facilities!...At least that was the reason that my paper used to support it in their editorial.

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The uoc movement is a movement for a reason. If we weren't taking these steps, this would be called the UOC still water.

I agree, but a movement must have an achievable and stated goal.....and there should be movement towards that goal.....Not conflict and wasted effort that does not further movement towards that goal...

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greg36f wrote:

The uoc movement is a movement for a reason. If we weren't taking these steps, this would be called the UOC still water.

I agree, but a movement must have an achievable and stated goal.....and there should be movement towards that goal.....Not conflict and wasted effort that does not further movement towards that goal...

Welcome to the forum greg36f, but you are starting off on the wrong foot.

First, I don't really desire a CCW. Not carrying a concealed firearm is hot enough, especially in summer months.

As for requesting permission, yes we know we will get rejected. Yes, many of us know we can not get a CCW, but unless we apply and get denied we don't have legal standing in court to challenge the law on a constitutional basis.

To not have standing is the court saying "you didn't try, so you were not infringed". They will throw those defendants out of court. The recent SCOTUS Heller decision started with some 5 people bringing suit and all but Heller were removed because they didn't have "standing".

With this effort we will create a circumstance where perhaps hundreds of people will have "standing" showing the full scope of the corruption and anti-right sentiment there is in California as it pertains to guns.

Stick around and learn a little more before you go flying off the wheel all mad at us. They are already trying to expand the school zones and make it even more illegal to lawfully carry a firearms for defensive purposes and we will not let it happen by quietly waiting in the night.

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Welcome to the forum greg36f, but you are starting off on the wrong foot.

First, I don't really desire a CCW. Not carrying a concealed firearm is hot enough, especially in summer months.

As for requesting permission, yes we know we will get rejected. Yes, many of us know we can not get a CCW, but unless we apply and get denied we don't have legal standing in court to challenge the law on a constitutional basis.

To not have standing is the court saying "you didn't try, so you were not infringed". They will throw those defendants out of court. The recent SCOTUS Heller decision started with some 5 people bringing suit and all but Heller were removed because they didn't have "standing".

With this effort we will create a circumstance where perhaps hundreds of people will have "standing" showing the full scope of the corruption and anti-right sentiment there is in California as it pertains to guns.

Stick around and learn a little more before you go flying off the wheel all mad at us. They are already trying to expand the school zones and make it even more illegal to lawfully carry a firearms for defensive purposes and we will not let it happen by quietly waiting in the night.

I do understand your position and I am in no way mad, against anyone’s right to carry openly or against guns in any way. I just think that the school issue can really come back to bite the open carry movement. We/you/I should push in every direction possible, but I think that where schools and kids are concerned people get REAL sensitive and very protective. The backlash and possible negative publicity of people wanting to carry gun near a school, "I the very faces of our children for gosh sakes"does not outweigh the gain that will not be had.

No school official will ever give permission and no politician however friendly to the open carry cause will ever back this. Kids/guns,,,,,bad mix in most peoples eyes. This includes the eyes of the courts, politicians and public officials.

I AM NOT SAYING THAT I DISAGREE WITH YOU OR IT SHOULD NOT BE A RIGHT! I am just saying that there is more harm than good to be had with this. File for open carry just to denied, walk into as many stores as possible just to test the waters, go into public to build support and explain why people should care about your rights even if they don't agree, have fund raisers for political action/legal support. All of this is good. Mixing kids and guns is a third rail....Touch it and you gonna get burnt. That's just reality.

All this being said, I want to thank people (so far) for being courteous. I know that many, if not most of you disagree with my stand on this. I have been 'lurking" here for a while now and I have seen many shall we call them "aggressive" responses.

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I think it would be valuable to be a little bit legally threatening, something along the lines of this:

Be aware, that if you do not grant lawful citizens permission to carry in school zones, that you open yourself up to civil liability in the event that any crime occurs anywhere near your schools and your denial prevented a lawful person from defending herself.

Now it may not be entirely true, but they won't know that. And it will give them some pause to think. Plus post-Nordyke-en-banc it may actually be true.

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Asking to carry a gun near a school is really pushing the edge when we really should be working near the center.

First off, welcome to the forums. It's always good to see new faces and get new ideas being expressed.

Secondly, I have no desire to work toward the center of any rights I have. Things like "free speech zones," or "gun-free zones," or warrantless searches are not things I will compromise on, they are fundamentally wrong and they cannot be tolerated in any form. One of the primary reasons I'm not a big NRA guy is because I feel like they compromise too much. While compromise might sometimes get things to be less bad, my rights aren't something I'm willing to compromise on. Give me liberty, or give me death. There is no middle-ground there.

Thirdly, for some of us in large cities, we're surrounded by schools. Try to walk from one end of San Francisco to the other end without going through a school zone. The more dense the population, the more dense the schools, the more restrictions are placed on the liberties of the inhabitants. If the law said something more reasonable, like stay a block away, then at least I could get around with some planning. But it's a kilometer in all directions.

And what I find the most idiotic about 626.9 is that according to state law, I can bring a registered "assault weapon" or an AR-15 with an off-list lower right up to the property line of a school. So what is 626.9 about? Is it about protecting kids or is it about the disarming of lawful abiding citizens?

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Asking to carry a gun near a school is really pushing the edge when we really should be working near the center.

First off, welcome to the forums. It's always good to see new faces and get new ideas being expressed.

Secondly, I have no desire to work toward the center of any rights I have. Things like "free speech zones," or "gun-free zones," or warrantless searches are not things I will compromise on, they are fundamentally wrong and they cannot be tolerated in any form. One of the primary reasons I'm not a big NRA guy is because I feel like they compromise too much. While compromise might sometimes get things to be less bad, my rights aren't something I'm willing to compromise on. Give me liberty, or give me death. There is no middle-ground there.

Thirdly, for some of us in large cities, we're surrounded by schools. Try to walk from one end of San Francisco to the other end without going through a school zone. The more dense the population, the more dense the schools, the more restrictions are placed on the liberties of the inhabitants. If the law said something more reasonable, like stay a block away, then at least I could get around with some planning. But it's a kilometer in all directions.

And what I find the most idiotic about 626.9 is that according to state law, I can bring a registered "assault weapon" or an AR-15 with an off-list lower right up to the property line of a school. So what is 626.9 about? Is it about protecting kids or is it about the disarming of lawful abiding citizens?

I agree that the law is unjust and unmanageable. I just think that it can be changed or overcome in a way other than writing to schools. More of an overall approach that pushes back on a multitude of gun restrictions with that one being included.

When I said that "we should be working near the center" I did not mean that we should be any less aggressive or active than we need to be.....Push and push hard but in the right direction. Find the weakness then attack there.....Guns/kids....Very strong area there......Lot's of very strong opinions and emotional issues.....attack there and you will probably do more damage than good......

Public opinion is against you there,,,,,,,,I know if is easy to say "heck with the public", and "most of the public are sheepies that get what government and rules they deserve", but don't forget that the public votes, makes laws and "public opinion does matter". Is that not ONE of the reasons that when we have open carry events where we dress well, try to appear non threatening, are willing and eager to talk to people who ask questions and often carry literature supporting our point. Wewant to look like normal guys and gals just exercising our rights as an American citizen.

Thanks’ for welcoming me to the sight. I have been lurking here for while and always enjoy hearing (or seeing) other peoples opinions.